


The Fine Line Between Life and Death

by pinkheichou



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with feels, Childhood Trauma, Death, Depression, Ereri Mini Bang 2019, Ereriminibang2k19, Family Tragedy, Guilty thoughts, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Instability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rough Sex, Secrets, Self-Harm, Step-Brothers, Step-Sibling Incest, Suicidal Thoughts, Switching between Past and Present, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, love obsession, there is so much angst tbh, twists, untreated mental illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 08:46:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19437982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkheichou/pseuds/pinkheichou
Summary: Hate me, use me, ruin me—make me forget.Eren Jaeger has lived by that motto ever since the traumatic experience in his childhood that he was blaming himself for. Convinced that he doesn’t deserve life and love – that he is meant to suffer and inflict pain on himself –, he vegetates as a spiritless human in his room.If it wasn’t for his step-brother Levi Ackerman, he would have starved to death years ago. As long as Levi was there, Eren had an anchor that chained him to life.Soon enough Levi realises that his devoted efforts and dedicated love for his step-brother are not enough to prevent a catastrophe from happening that additionally reveals hidden demons of Eren’s past.If Levi doesn’t act immediately, a second tragedy is inevitable.





	The Fine Line Between Life and Death

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!!
> 
> This is a fic written for the [Ereri Mini Bang 2k19 event](https://ererievents.tumblr.com/post/183611945434/erenlevi-spring-2019-mini-bang-event-hey-there) on tumblr :D
> 
> I got paired up with the artist morebeesthanyoucouldimagine and they drew this gorgeous [art](https://morebeesthanyoucouldimagine.tumblr.com/post/185984439336/i-was-so-excited-to-be-paired-up-with-pinkheichou) for my fic!! It's soooo pretty and amazing, I adore it a lot!!
> 
> I hope you read ALL THE TAGS before proceeding, this is a 1000% angst fic
> 
> Enjoy!

6 p.m. Levi was running late. He rushed through the alleys and pushed through the masses of people who buzzed on the main street for late afternoon shopping tours.

His anatomy class had unfortunately run longer than supposed to.

And of course it had to be on a day where Levi had preferred to come home earlier because of his step-brother. His step-brother Eren – who was also his boyfriend – had been sleeping when Levi had left (Levi had checked on that), but it had been a restless and stirring sleep, as if Eren was struggling with cascading nightmares.

There was a high chance for Eren to be in a crestfallen state today. 

Eren had fallen into a deep – endless – depression many years ago, and Levi was the only one who could assist him. 

It was a miracle that that very boy had pulled himself together enough to graduate from highschool with somewhat decent grades.

But ever since then he had made no efforts to do anything at all. Everything went downwards and Eren retreated to basically living in his room that he would only leave when needs called for it.

As though the darkness and guilt had waited until Eren had nothing else to do, they sucked him into their gorge and kept him there, controlling Eren’s mental state.

Ever since the prolongation of his class, Levi couldn’t stop thinking about Eren.

What was he doing? Was he all right? Was he anxious because Levi hadn’t come home at his usual time?

_Was Eren still alive?_

Levi quickened his steps. That he would go to med school to become a doctor and work part-time for a living while Eren would stay at home, depressed and feeling miserable, worked just because Levi had promised to his step-brother and himself that he would take care of him. If not busy with studies or work, the only person Levi would dedicate his heart to was Eren.

After all, Levi and Eren had only each other. Their family, Levi’s mother Kuchel and Eren’s father Grisha, was dead and the bond between the two step-brothers had evolved to love due to certain circumstances.

Levi didn’t regret it, though.

He would do anything to keep Eren alive and as less depressed as possible.

Eren was a cradle, constantly swaying between life and death—and Levi would always pursue to have Eren's swaying stop on the shore of life.

Levi was the only one Eren listened to when he felt like it. Therapists or psychologists would have been a waste because it had taken Levi months to convince Eren to talk to him. After the incident in their childhood they were taken care of by a foster family (until Levi graduated and was old enough to make money so that he could live together with Eren) and the first few months Eren had stayed mute and ghastly traumatised. No doctor or therapist could help him.

Only will power could bring him back to talk. And once he did, he made clear that he didn’t want anyone in his life than Levi. That had been the origin of a relationship developing to something heavily woven with conflicting and messy emotions—love and guilt, tragedy and remedy, pain and salvation, _death and life._

Turning his keys in the keyhole, Levi opened the front door with silent care. The depleting silence he was confronted with foreshadowed presently existing sorrow. It was unbearingly silent here; everything stood still and stiff, no sign of life attracted attention by means of padding steps or a humming or noises that pointed out that someone was resting or sitting somewhere.

A shiver ran down Levi’s spine as he crossed the hallway, putting down his bag and hanging his jacket on a coat hanger. As he proceeded forward, his presence dabbed the atmosphere with an electrifying whiff of life.

His foreshadowing must have been right. Eren had probably been staying in bed all day, basically imitating a corpse with his lack of movement or doings.

Levi sighed as he was facing the door to Eren’s room. Levi had not once doubted that Eren, being the way he was, would definitely need a room for himself, so Levi arranged one without further ado. However, he had also let Eren know that he was always welcomed in Levi’s room, if that was what he needed at times.

Levi would grant Eren any wish.

He knocked on the door, lightly. Silence.

“Eren?”

The silence lingered on.

Levi placed his hand on the door handle, carefully opening it so that he wouldn’t produce too many creaking with the archaic door.

He slipped his head inside first.

“Eren?”

A low rustle of blankets that were barely visible to the human eye were the only sign that a person had occupied the bed.

“Hey, Eren. I’m sorry for being late.”

The muteness. The lack of motion. This wasn’t good. Now Levi was certain that Eren had skidded to one of the least manageable states of his depression. The nightmares must have contributed to it.

“Were you lying in bed all day?” Levi did his best not to sound reproachful but encouraging. To him, Eren doing nothing – his uselessness – wasn’t a burden. He didn’t hate it. There were reasons why Eren had become overly dysfunctional, especially the last few years—Levi had made it his job to get Eren through his smothering phases without many harms or additional contempts he could abuse himself with.

Eren had already suffered a lot in his childhood after that… incident. Levi couldn’t leave Eren to himself and watch how his life was slowly decaying, led by monsters in his head.

Eren didn’t deserve that. His beloved Eren didn’t deserve the pain and hurtful thoughts.

As long as Levi was here, he wouldn’t allow his step-brother to get swallowed wholly by a slow death or even the temptation of it.

Although hidden behind blankets, Eren noticed Levi sitting down next to him on the bed, since the mattress had dipped down under him.

“Eren? Is there anything you want? Anything you want to tell me?” Levi curled his fingers around the seam of the blankets and waited. When Eren didn’t resist, didn’t shove his covers away and turn around, Levi softly pulled them down.

The face hidden behind a messy chocolate brown but dull mop of hair came to sight and Levi remarked instantly that Eren’s face looked miserable. His skin ashy and the dark circles under his eyes protruding like black halos.

Eren was peering into the distance, not meeting Levi’s gaze. The infamous expressive greenness in his eyes had lost its spark a long time ago, replaced by foggy dullness.

“Mhmm.” Eren mewled, shifting from his sideward position to a lying one, the blanket unruly on top of him.

Levi dreaded those moments where he had to witness Eren being depressed and inert as hell, and he couldn’t do much about it. It was at times like these that Eren would remain silent most of the time, refraining from answering Levi’s questions that stem from genuine worry.

“Please talk to me.” Levi tried soothingly. He caressed Eren’s bland cheek. “You know I always only want to help you. You’re the reason I am here. You are my life.”

“Nightmare.” Eren’s voice sounded like not being used for years, the volume and tone cranky and porose. “The nightmare—from tonight—awful… I saw it again—in my dreams… Dad and Kuchel… and I—…. I….”

Eren covered his face with frail fingers, his shoulders quivering as the recollection of the dream shook him to the core. His mind didn’t reproduce any details, but messy snippets of the nightmare were activated. A mixture of past and illusion.

_'Die.’_

_'Suffocate.’_

_’…your step-brother…’_

_’… and your step-mother…’_

_'Death.’_

_'Blood.’_

_'Pain.’_

_'Dead, dead, dead.’_

_'Kill!’_

Eren sobbed and whimpered. His breathing went hard, Levi placed a hand on his chest.

“Breathe in and out. Slowly.” he instructed calmly.

“That nightmare… It felt so real. As if everything from the past replayed just to remind me that I… that… my fault.”

“Hey. Stop. Please, Eren.”

Levi cupped Eren’s face, making him face each other. The pad of his thumbs rubbed over the dark circles under Eren’s eyes reassuringly.

“You don’t have to think about that nightmare. It’s not the present. And the thing you’re thinking about lies in the past too.”

“I’m awful, Levi.”

“You aren’t. You are _worthy_.”

“No, I am… the worst.”

Levi paused, going back to cast his eyes over Eren’s tragic face. Everything on it looked slack by sadness, or fatigued from existing. Then, he inclined his head forward, tentatively, scrutinising Eren’s reaction. When he was sure it was fine, he pressed a kiss onto Eren’s lips.

His fingers wandered down, caressing the curve of the back of Eren’s neck. He kissed Eren again, longer this time. The other remained silent and motionless, letting it happen.

Levi knew that this was one of he moments where only one thing could help Eren to be at a bit of ease with his self-deprecating thoughts and his deploring memories.

Physical sensations.

Levi climbed onto the bed, hovering above Eren. Restless but desperate for any kind of relief, Eren’s body reacted with some zeal. He clawed at Levi’s clothed back, forcing him down.

Hate me, use me, ruin me— _make me forget._

Right now, Eren needed powerful physical sensations so badly.

Their sex was messy and profane and ferocious.

Levi had found it best to fuck all senses out of his step-brother for the moment, leaving him to his bursting climaxes, and stamina that needed an ample amount of time to recover.

He had gone by Eren’s demand and had plastered aggressive hickeys and bite marks onto his skin.

Still better than those red lines that Eren tended to carve into his wrists too often.

Eren’s naked body looked blemished and violated. Levi was actually keeping in mind that the marks and imprints had been all wanted by Eren.

At least he got calmer and his destructive mood smoothened, Levi thought. He pecked Eren’s temple. “Go to sleep, Eren.”

“Hm.” Eren hummed, distracted by his physical exhaustion. However, he caught Levi’s wrist when the other was about to retreat to the kitchen and make something for Eren to eat once he would wake up again. Levi had no doubts that Eren hadn’t eaten anything for the past 24 hours. He motioned himself around to face his step-brother as he waited for whatever Eren wanted to spill. Eren’s green eyes were glazed and unfocused. If Levi didn’t know it any better, he would have assumed that he was taking care of a junkie. Eren’s skin glistened with a layer of sweat and his every kind of red mark blared on his lightly tanned skin like alarm devices. “I wonder what it’d be like if killing myself. What might happen after that. Aren’t you curious too?”

“Eren…” Levi’s chest hurt. It hurt listening to Eren saying that.

Eren continued unperturbed. “I can’t deny that there is a part of me that is waiting for me to finally give up on life altogether. That part of me _wants_ me to kill myself. And there are good reasons for it. Oh god, Levi, I wonder, I wonder. Isn’t death the only way out of this agony?”

“Eren,” Levi’s tone became more urgent. He touched Eren’s forehead with his. If humans could feel other human’s heartbeats, Eren would notice that Levi was fighting with his own fears right at that very moment. Whenever Eren said stuff like that, Levi would view Eren as a ticking bomb, and Levi couldn’t estimate whether he could save Eren. That bomb became an unpredictable one everytime anew.

And yet, time and again, Levi would pull himself together and do everything possible to attain the least damages.

“Eren, sleep.” He kissed Eren’s eyelids, in a way or other forcing Eren to close his eyes. To undeline his wish, he laid a flat open palm on them. “It’s the best if you sleep now. You’re exhausted and tired. Try to think of how I love you unconditionally while going to sleep. I love you, Eren.”

Eren released a soft hum once more, but silenced then. He kept his eyes closed as his breath slowly slipped to even and rhythmic up and down of his chest. Luckily, he had really drifted off to sleep.

Upon viewing that, a short-lasting sense of serenity sprouted inside Levi’s chest. The same place that had constricted minutes prior.

Levi approached the kitchen and immediately got to work by preparing dinner. Chicken pot with rice; something hefty and nutriticious for Eren’s neglected and malnourished body. As he was chopping up the chicken and vegetables, Levi often drifted off—his thoughts always being with Eren and his well-being, or rather what of it was still existent.

If only he could _cure_ Eren or erase the happenings in Eren’s childhood with the snap of a finger.

One hour later and Levi had finished making the pot. He ate his portion alone in the kitchen, absentmindedly shovelling his meal into his mouth. He put the rest of the pot into the fridge so that he could feed Eren later. His next stop was the bedroom that he technically shared with Eren.

Levi still had one important thing to do.

As soon as he entered it, turning on the lights in the misty room, he sat down at his desk and opened the top drawer hastily. He fished out a notebook and a pen. 

He wasn’t keeping a diary, it was something more significant to him.

As he opened the first page, he was met with a saying written by himself that he would read over whenever he opened that book. It gave him some odd peace to imprint into his mind over and over again what the meaning of his life was. The letters read:

_My life is devoted to Eren’s well-being. I will do everything possible to keep him sane and alive._

_Devotion._ Levi was perfectly fine with that.

 _Sanity._ Levi wished that for Eren.

 _Alive._ Oh please, don’t take Eren away from him.

Frankly speaking, Levi’s biggest fear was coming home to Eren having killed himself.

Levi flipped to the last written page and read through it. He couldn’t do else than keep record of Eren’s mental state.

Levi wasn’t a psychologist, he couldn’t give his step-brother the type of therapy Eren didn’t want to seek by visiting actual therapists.

But at least Levi could jot Eren’s health and mental state down every week and day if needed—to keep track of when it got worse and when it might be too dangerous to leave him to himself. So far Levi hadn’t faced drastic problems that had carried chances of losing Eren for real and without doubt.

There was something – Levi couldn’t really name it – that must have always kept Eren a step away from ending it all. Levi hoped that he played a role in that reason. Eren had never been the talkative type of person and ever since the incident, he had mostly shut down, spouting a waterfall of words when he was degrading himself.

Levi took the pen and wrote a couple of words down. Eren had appeared more depressed than usual, so Levi wanted to keep an alert eye at him for the next few days. Fortunately, weekends were coming around.

Once done, Levi’s eyes roamed over his new entry.

Levi sighed, rubbing his eyes with his palms. _Yeah._

He would take good care of him.

After all, Levi was living for Eren. His life was meant for Eren.

***

“Eren? Remember how I told you that I married again? Now you’re going to meet your new family. They’re here.” Eren’s father Grisha announced with a broad smile as he opened the front door with one hand, holding his eight year old son in the other.

Eren hadn’t forgotten about that and ever since his father had told him that he would have a step-mother and step-brother soon, he couldn’t stop wondering about what they were gonna be like.

Thus, with curiousity gleaming in his big eyes, he followed the door being opened, tipping his head forward to get a better view of the two persons who had rung the bell just now.

A female almost as tall as his dad and a young boy slightly taller than Eren came to view, and Eren whipped his head up and down as he curiously eyed them, a finger placed onto his bottom lip.

The woman’s face lit up with a vibrant smile as soon as he saw Grisha and they hugged dearly, each of them giving the other a kiss on the cheek. Then, the woman spotted Eren and knelt down to him, her smile not having lost any of its suave vibrancy.

“Hello, my dear little boy. Nice to finally meet you. I’m Kuchel. Your father’s new wife.” Kuchel – from now on Eren’s step-mother – first ruffled his hair and then planted a smooch on Eren’s forehead. Eren rubbed the wetness that clung to his head in a timid way, causing Kuchel to laugh heartily. As if this particular moment reminded her of something, she pulled the other boy to her side, resting her hands on the boy’s shoulders. “By the way, this is my son Levi. He’s two years older than you. From now on he’ll be your step-brother. Levi, say hi to your step-brother.”

“Hi.” Levi said kindly but curtly.

Eren noticed that Kuchel and Levi shared the same raven hair colour and the same small eyes. Kuchel’s hair was long and her face pale but pretty. Levi’s hair was short and assumingly hid an undercut, Eren wasn’t sure. He had pale skin too and his face was fair in a childlike way.

“Hi, I’m Eren.” Eren waved to Levi. That earned him a hair ruffle from his father. Levi nodded timidly and Eren sent him a joyful smile.

Half an hour later, after Grisha and Kuchel had carried her and her son’s belongings to their rooms, everyone was sat on the couch in the living room, drinking tea or cocoa and eating cookies and muffins that Kuchel had made.

Eren had imagined the first meet with his new mother and brother to be more tense. Contrary to his own believes and his dad’s secret worries, Eren had accommodated himself to his new family quickly. He had already started taking a liking in both.

All four of them sitting together and initiating the beginning of a new family felt natural to Eren.

He was sitting next to Kuchel who was sitting next to her husband. Only Levi had chosen to take a seat on the armchair opposite to Eren. The raven kid was intently following the three person’s conversations without feeling left out.

Eren assumed that Levi must be a calm boy by nature. The serenity that resonated from Levi made Eren feel safe and at home. He hoped for getting along with his step-brother. Although having said no more than one word to him, Eren got intrigued and would love to establish a strong brotherly bond with him.

“Eren.” Eren’s thoughts snapped and he blinked as he assigned that voice to that of Kuchel’s. His step-mother had reached out to him by calling his name in the sweetest, most dulcet voice ever, and a hand rubbing his back soothingly. Kuchel was giving him a wonderful smile. With her eyes closed, small crinkles formed around them. “I hope you will accept me as your step-mother. Don’t worry, you don’t have to call me 'mother’ or 'step-mother’ if you don’t like it. Just Kuchel is fine.”

Eren pondered on her words for a minute, thinking so deeply that his brows were frowning. In reality, he was lost in thoughts about something slightly different. Cocking his head as far back as he could in order to look Kuchel deep in the eyes, jutting his lips out as his expression saddened, he questioned sadly, “You won’t die as early as my real mother, will you? My mother died too early.” Remembering his biological mother, and her beautiful face, and her radiating smile, and her exuberant love for him, Eren dropped his head and pulled at Kuchel’s sleeves as the memories distressed him.

“Eren…” Grisha whispered, an undertone of reprimand trailing along.

“No, no. It’s fine.” Kuchel waved a dismissive hand. She cast her gaze down to Eren again, stroking his cheeks fondly. “I won’t die early. I’m sure your mother was a great mother and a wonderful being. It’s sad that she isn’t living anymore. But rest assured, I won’t leave you soon. I can’t be like your mother, but I will try my best to be a good step-mother to you. Okay?”

Eren nodded sheepishly, his sulking fading. Kuchel pinched one of his cheeks and kissed him on the head the third time today.

Suddenly, Eren sensed someone sitting left to him. He turned his head, freeing himself from Kuchel’s pinching fingers. Levi had switched places, occupying the seat next to Eren now. He was holding something in his hands that was hidden under his curved fingers he had closed to a ball.

Levi gave Eren a quick measuring look before he tentatively spread his fingers apart, parting his hands. His bottom palm was holding a paper figure.

“It’s a swan.” Levi said, modesty and kindness seeping through his voice. “I’m taking origami classes.”

Eren mouthed a small 'o’ as he regarded the origami from all sides, too awestruck to touch it. He lost some of his awe when Levi placed it into his hands.

“It’s for you.” he said.

Eren was at a loss for words for the first few seconds. Then, the excitement exploded inside him and, from that point on, couldn’t be stalled anymore. He shrieked happily, “That’s so cool! I love it, Levi! How did you do that?! Thank you so so so much! Dad, look! Levi made this for me! For me!”

The two adults were laughing as Eren’s excitement grew exponentially. Meanwhile Levi got slightly troubled answering all of Eren’s questions at once, in the end falling back to modestly smiling at him and telling him that this present was not a big deal.

“Thank you so much, Levi! I hope we can be awesome step-brothers!” Eren hugged Levi tightly, eyes squeezed shut, the hug lasting, his happiness crawling over Levi’s shoulders.

Levi was glad that his present got accepted well. And he, too, wanted to experience great times with his new step-brother. Awkwardly, he returned the hug.

Kuchel was patting her son’s head while Grisha said, “Let’s hope for pleasant times as a new family.”

Levi felt Eren nodding ecstatically on his chest, a small squeal muffled by his shirt.

The reaction of Levi was a tiny smile tugging at the corners of his thin lips.

_Let us all have a great time together, Eren._

***

Eren woke up in the middle of the night without any sense of time or place. He had to squint and blink his eyes a couple of times before he realised that he was in his own room—having stayed here the whole day and night. It was safe to assume that, in the past 10 years, Eren had spent most of his time in his bed. Everything sounded sadder when knowing that Eren had spent more time in his own room rather than sharing a bed together with Levi in the other room.

He couldn’t help it, though. Eren didn’t want to drag Levi into his hell. The demons he was constantly fighting against day in and day out, the haunting nightmares and memories steadily eating away at him like wolves gnawing at a dead moose--Levi shouldn’t witness that all the time.

Eren had to face the demons of his past alone.

Either that or death.

How many times had Eren told himself that.

He could either go on and suffer from the loss and pain.

Or he could kill himself.

He had been on the verge of committing the latter so many times. Too many times, he had lost count.

Sighing deeply, he stood up in his bed. For seconds, his vision was spinning, taking in the darkness of his room as something that could easily be the center of a black hole. With a spinning head and an unstable vision, he felt like being swallowed down by the untouchable darkness.

Disappearing and being forgotten.

A lovely thought.

Eren dragged his feet off his bed and actually managed to leave it, even if that had meant to take minutes to even so much as sit up, the pad of his feet coming into contact with the rug next to his bed. The softness should have had an salving effect, but Eren knew that he was the epitome of endless calamity. There was no use in denying or sugarcoating that.

Eren deserved that. No days passed where he wouldn’t tell himself exactly that.

Eren deserve it.

Because he wasn’t allowed to feel anything else anymore than pain and the sweet echo of death.

Since that was nothing new, Eren walked up to the bathroom with those by now sweet and familiar reminders thrumming inside his head. The demons must be wide awake at night, using the allurement of the night to drag their victims to torturous misfortune.

The worsening headache and shallow breathing of his could have been seen as a sign for a bad omen, but Eren had ignored both factors.

A big mistake.

Doom was ready to fall onto him.

Once he had reached the bathroom, Eren was forced to keep himself up by gripping the edge of the sink, fingers clawed onto the rim, arms shaking with how difficult he could stand upright by himself.

Eren looked himself in the mirror. He shouldn’t have done it, but now it had happened.

Oh how pitilessly atrocious he was looking.

The dark cirlces under his eyes presented themselves on his face like two trophies, bragging about what wonderful jobs they had done to ruin Eren’s face. His front locks were damp from the sweat that had formed on his forehead on his way from the bedroom to the bathroom sink.

Skin tinting an unhealthy colour and his cheeks hollowed out whenever he opened his mouth, it was only now that Eren took notice of his sharp breathing.

As he strained his face to even out his panting, Eren had not considered that certain facial expressions of pain or fear didn’t do him good. Having caught one of those bad timings while he was facing himself in the mirror, his reflection reminded him of a certain someone’s face who had looked the same way he was looking like right now.

Kuchel… His step-mother… Her face… bizarre like that…

And then the memories hit him like a furious tsunami.

The face staring at him changed its looks. Eren was now looking at a grotesque and smirking version of himself as his vision twisted.

The person in the mirror spoke. Eren’s breathing went fast and uncoordinated.

_'What are you waiting for? Go kill yourself.’_

_'Our family was doomed to fall apart.’_

_'You wanted that. You let it happen.’_

_'It’s your fault—entirely your fault.’_

_'They died because of you.’_

_'You useless piece of shit.’_

_'Your fault!’_

“Stop!!” Eren screamed at his own reflection that went back to looking normal—"normal" meaning right at that moment the reflection of Eren who started crying and yelling in agony as the memories whirling inside his head accelerated his panic attack.

Seeing no way out to cease this dire moment, Eren punched the mirror with a balled fist—out of a sudden and driven by despair. He released a loud scream once more, hating himself more and more for his damn weakness and those denouncing images of the past. The mirror burst into hundreds of pieces, the ones under Eren’s fingers cutting into his skin.

Wailing, Eren fell onto his knees, a streak of blood leaving its crimson traces on the wall that had come to sight after the mirror got shattered.

Meanwhile, next room, Levi woke up from his light slumber, wondering about the noises even before he was fully awake.

***

Eren couldn’t have been any more joyful. His first few approaches at getting familiar with his new step-brother turned out to go well. He and Levi had steadily grown accustomed to each other, getting closer emotionally. Eren was already viewing Levi as something more important than a friend. He had the feeling that he was finding a like-minded person in his step-brother.

They did have their differences and peculiar habits the other had to get used to, but it didn’t seem as though those would get in their way of starting a great brothership.

Eren truly was happy.

And Levi, although rather sparing of words, expressed his contentment towards Eren or his mother by smiling sweetly or getting clingy. He didn’t have any problems with his new step-father either. Grisha had accepted him, as though he had always been his eldest son and the few praises Levi had already earned from him clearly fed his small confidence. Levi was 10 years old, but already in sixth grade because he had skipped one. And when he told his step-father – who was a doctor – that his dream was to become a doctor too, Grisha had nothing else than approval left for him. Levi’s grades were excellent and Grisha would love to help Levi pursue his dream.

Eren and Levi often played together, inside their rooms and outside in the backyard, and they would tell each other how happy they were over their new family situation which, in their opinions, had evolved to something flawless.

Their family was wrapped in perfect bliss.

Or so they thought.

Because there was one thing that they couldn’t have known of beforehand. Something that had crept into the clockwork of their intact family like pest plants in one’s garden. A malign infestation crawling into their lives slowly but surely. And the worst was:

The misfortune came from within the family.

But how could they have known that beforehand?

There was no way they could. Eren and Levi hadn’t been unobservant during the first weeks of living together with their parents; but they hadn’t noticed anything weird.

Well. If anything, then the first thing they had deemed as strange came months later.

Eren and Levi had come home from a trip to the nearby park where they had flown a kite. Gleeful and reminiscing about the fun time from earlier in the park, they darted with quick steps to the kitchen, expecting at least one of their parents sitting there on the kitchen table or doing the dishes by the sink who they could greet.

However, the thing was that they had seemingly barged in what appeared to be a verbal fight.

Kuchel and Grisha swiftly whipped their heads to the kitchen door’s entrance, where their children were ogling them with questioning eyes—an expression of light terror had rolled over their faces. They had frozen in place like two criminals being caught in a crime.

Instantly, they ironed their posture and demeanour, putting on smiles onto their faces.

Everything from the fight the kids had caught a glimpse of prior had disappeared like a phantom that didn’t bear any actual existence.

“You two are back.” Kuchel said in a cheerful voice. If it hadn’t been for what Eren and Levi had interferred in, they would have believed her act to be fully genuine. She cocked her head as she welcomed the kids.

“Did you two manage to fly the kite? How was it?” Grisha added, smiling now too. Something like an unpleasant vibe sizzled between the couple which worried especially Eren a bit.

He furrowed his thick brows. “Is everything all right? Were you two fighting?”

“Oh! Oh—no—no, no.” Kuchel was fast to react, shaking her head resolutely. She patted Eren’s head. “It was just… I was just mad about someone – something – and let my anger out on your father a bit too much, I guess. I shouldn’t have yelled at him like that. My mistake. But the fight was nothing between us. Okay?”

Eren was hesitating. As if to search for confirmation, he directed his attention to his father. Grisha smiled at him encouragingly, apologetically. “Nothing to worry about, okay?”

Eren dropped his head. Nodded then. Kuchel kissed his hair. His father ruffled it. 

“Everything is fine between us.” his step-mother reassured him again, this time with more emphasis.

“Don’t worry.” his father said in a nice voice.

Because Eren didn’t want to think about the possibility of them fighting, he quickly believed his parents when he left the kitchen, lost in more or less confused thoughts.

Levi followed him, still carrying the kite. He took Eren’s hand and squeezed it. “It probably wasn’t so serious.” was the only comment he gave on the argument they had walked into.

Eren nodded as he turned his body to him. “It probably was nothing. They wouldn’t have serious fights. They love each other. Loving couples don’t have serious fights, right?”

Unable to think of anything else, Levi agreed with him by nodding as well, squeezing Eren’s hand once more. Levi would be there for his little step-brother.

It was only a few weeks later that they concluded that their parents must have told them a lie when they first caught them fighting. If that argument had really been about someone else, it would have taken place less frequently.

Because of the lasting frequency of the fights picking up, Eren and Levi deduced that the fights between their parents must have been much more personal.

***

The defeaning lunacy had wrapped itself around Eren’s quivering body.

The glass shards on the floor watched him condemningly – Eren seeing fractures of his own contorted reflection in some of them –, lured him to the shady corners of temptation the same way the wicked Queen had persuaded Snow White to eat the poisoned apple.

The sharp edges of the shattered mirror. They screamed with fake beauty. Eren couldn’t look away from them. Just imagining what kind of beautiful clean cuts they would trace on his wrist animated Eren to pick a shard up. His right hand had enclosed one, fingers clawing around the edges, almost causing his hand to bleed.

Weighing the tool of blood and pain in his hands got Eren some of his composure back. He was shaking less, was breathing more evenly.

He rolled up the sleeve that revealed rows of old and new cuts—ancient memories aged to scars and recent punishments morphed into vertical slices.

Eren was debating over his next cut. Should it be carved into his skin right next to the most recent one? Just a light scratch? Or a bit deeper than usual? How deep could he get? How deep until he would pass out? What about passing out and finding death through unconsciousness?

The more he was thinking about it, the sweeter the idea of eventual death became.

Eren set the shard on his wrist. A middle-deep, thick cut sounded appropriate.

He moved the edge to split open a spot on his skin no bigger than a droplet of tear at first.

A hand that wasn’t his halted the hand -- that was about to pierce through more skin -- in place.

Eren blinked at Levi’s pale hand lying over his.

“Eren,” Levi spoke in a tone that reached long abandoned and neglected corners inside Eren’s messed up head, “Don’t.”

Two simple words. And it made Eren scrunch up his face and whine little sobs.

“Eren… I’m here. I’m here for you. You are not alone with your thoughts.”

“I am!” Eren sobbed harder, letting out heaving breaths. “They have become a part of myself. I can’t escape them. I can’t run away from them.”

“But you can be stronger than them.” Levi slowly motioned the broken slice of mirror away from Eren’s wrist. Eren shook his head. He was in the center of the void that had become his life. What filled it with sensations were the suffocating memories of his past.

Eren was shaking with his whole body. “I… want to die.”

At that, Levi’s face fell, illustrating more of his worries. He took the razor from Eren’s fingers with skilled patience and enveloped his step-brother in a fond hug.

Eren’s cries streamed out of his mouth ceaselessly. Levi soothing him would never fail to make him feel… something. After all, Levi was the only one Eren allowed to get this close to him. No other person – no doctor or therapist or friend – could comfort Eren, because Eren wouldn’t let them in the first place.

Levi sighed inaudibly, tightening his hug. It might be that he couldn’t prevent Eren from self-harming (because he couldn’t monitor him 24/7), but by monitoring his behaviour and emotional state, Levi could tell that Eren did feel less suicidal or emotionally tormented when Levi was by his side.

No wonder, since Levi had accompanied him through life ever since the traumatic experience.

In Levi’s eyes, the only way one could describe Eren was ‘a tragic boy’.

A tragic boy. A tragic boy who had seen horrible stuff too early in his childhood. A tragic boy who had burdened himself with guilt at an age too young for him or literally anyone else.

A tragic boy who suffered from life itself.

Eren has lived like that – the haphazard panic attacks, the self-harming, the suicidal thoughts, the self-depracation – ever since that tragedy. He was convinced that he didn’t deserve to love or care for someone ever in his life anymore. Nonetheless Levi meant everything to him.

And Levi… Levi loved Eren so much, he had even made a promise (to himself and to Eren) that he would never leave the other alone and that he would always take care of him whenever Eren failed at doing so due to his fucked up mental state and depression.

It had started way back when they had lived together with their foster family.

Even if never spoken out or thought about thoroughly, but it lay like a string between them that Levi’s care and love and marginal influence on Eren were crucial as to why Eren couldn’t bring himself to end his life. The fear of death was second place.

Eren had long ingrained it in his mind that he deserved pain (already having gone through it a lot in the past) and death, but at the same time he wanted to feel alive and human again.

With that, Levi had kind of felt forced to use unorthodox methods to assist in Eren’s unhealthy coping mechanism.

He had sex with Eren when Eren asked for it—when Eren was close to losing touch of life and reality. And he would bite and scratch and bruise Eren while fucking him—because Eren needed that constant feeling that was ruling his life. Else he would lose the last bits of sanity.

Eren not wanting to get any professional treatment was one thing, Levi using sex and physical injuries as a replacement was another thing; but Levi doing things behind Eren’s back had become something essential to him.

For instance, if he assumed that it would be too risky to leave Eren alone in the morning, he would slip sleeping pills into Eren’s drink before going to university. Like that, there was a high probability that Eren would sleep through most of the day so that Levi could keep him under watch once he came back.

As odd as it sounded, but this had basically become their life.

***

Eren was sitting on a step of the staircase leading to the rooms on the first floor, his head pressed against the gap of two bars connecting the railing to the stairs. It was 8 p.m., he and Levi had come home from playing outside long time ago.

His parents might have said that nothing was wrong last time, but it had become clear to both boys that Grisha and Kuchel hadn’t stopped having fights. And it was even clearer that these fights had nothing to do with other people.

So, with a sullen face, he was listening to the muffled loud voices being ejected behind the closed doors of the living room.

After some time, Levi joined him on the stairs. The raven kid had wanted to read a story together with his little step-brother and thus had gone to his room, only to find it empty and desolate.

Levi stayed mute, aware of the voices that fought and spat bitter words at each other. He placed an arm on Eren’s back.

“They’re fighting again. It’s the third time this week.” Eren mumbled lowly.

Levi watched Eren for a second, choosing words for a retort wisely. “Sometimes they can’t find an agreement.”

“I don’t want them to divorce. I don’t want you to leave me.”

“I won’t leave you. I will always be your step-brother.”

Levi had said that, even though he himself couldn’t be sure whether a divorce was as unlikely as he wished for it to be. He couldn’t deny that there had been quite some fights goin on that even he had noticed.

Eren and Levi had remained in place for a while, until it was Levi who brought Eren back to his room, distracting him from his worries by telling him that story he had planned to narrate this evening.

Related to the changed environment between their parents, Eren made up his mind and deliberately visited his parents in their bedroom one night. Because he feared that they would divorce each other, he needed to know whether that would happen sooner or later. If it did, it would mean that not only Kuchel but his beloved step-brother Levi would be gone from his life too. And Eren was scared of that.

Surprisingly, he found only Kuchel in the bedroom. Probably too caught up with his own fears and thoughts about that plan of his, he hadn’t even noticed that his father wasn’t home.

Kuchel was sat up in her bed, reading a book with a fretful expression. Her tiny lamp on the nightstand was the only source of light. Streaks of the light framed her face in an unnatural way. She looked like a marble statue.

At some point she noticed Eren’s presence without her step-son having notified his visit. Her face relaxed. “Is something the matter, Eren?”

Eren hesitated with his answer for a second. “I wanted to say goodnight.” he sheepishly said. Perhaps it was better not to voice his concern first thing first.

Kuchel’s lips formed a barely noticeable smile. “That’s sweet of you. Come here.” She patted the empty spot next to her—where Grisha should actually be lying.

Eren followed her instructions, waddling to the bed with tiny steps. He climbed onto the bed ungracefully to which Kuchel had to laugh. Eren kind of smiled a bit. A bittersweet smile.

He sat next to her and stared at nothing in particular in front of him. Kuchel ruffled his hair, suspecting something. “Where is the goodnight? Or is there something you want to get off your chest?”

“Are you and dad going to divorce?” Eren spilled in a moment of unexpectedness.

Kuchel’s hand stilled in Eren’s hair. “What?” she asked, audibly taken aback.

Eren clutched the blanket, visibly distraught. “I heard you and dad fighting.” A little pause to take an uneasy breath. “Many times.”

His sulking face was the saddest Kuchel had ever seen. “Eren, oh God, Eren. Don’t worry about that too much.” She gave him a tight and long embrace before she cupped his tiny round face in her pale big hands. Her thumbs caressed the area right under his big, vibrant green eyes. “It’s just that your father’s and I’s views on parenting differ a lot. Your father tends to have everything in perfect order which is why he often happens to indirectly criticise me. He is… stubborn sometimes. He wants things to go his way. And I don’t always agree with his suggestions. This is why we have those little arguments. They aren’t as big as fights, just little disagreements.” Kuchel pinched Eren’s cheek to make her last point clear.

Eren’s pout had flattened a tad. “What do you mean? ‘Not agree with suggestions’…?”

“For example…” Kuchel pondered over that, eyes cast to the ceiling. Looking him back in the eyes, she said, “Your father wants to send Levi to a private school where he would also live there -- a so-called boarding school -- so that Levi has the best chances to become a doctor later. But I am against putting Levi under such pressure, you know.”

Because Eren remembered that Levi had mentioned that his goal was to become a doctor when he was older, Eren nodded to that.

Kuchel didn’t waste a minute to rid Eren of his concerns. She ruffled his head once more. “But don’t worry, Eren. This is not your problem. You are a nice and good boy. A good boy.”

Feeling evidently better, Eren washed away his last snippets of worries, not knowing that this was only temporary.

He nodded and beamed at his step-mother. “Goodnight!”

The next morning, all four of them were sat at the kitchen table, eating breakfast together. Meaning that Grisha was present too, although Eren had not perceived when it was that his father had come back home last night. It must have been way later than the time where he had been in their bedroom, talking to Kuchel.

However, his absence yesterday must have had a meaning because they were having breakfast mostly in silence right now, when usually it was their parents conversing most of the time at that time of the day.

Levi had spoken up once to show Grisha his homework. Grisha spilled out strings of high praises after checking his homework, claiming that one day Levi would become a great doctor—given that he kept up his hard work.

With the conversation from last night in mind, Eren switched his attention to Kuchel. Her mood and expression had changed to bitterness upon hearing Grisha trumpet those praises and ask her son to work hard.

As a seemingly implicit counterattack, she spoiled Eren—feeding him and telling him how good and cute and nice he was.

Eren didn’t know what it was, but a veil of unstable emotions would occasionally form on Kuchel’s face--like the bad taking over the good.

What neither of the kids could know was that Kuchel’s love for Grisha might be genuine, but it was highly smutched by the problems she had with his attitude and views.

Especially when it concerned their children.

***

A few days passed by and felt like decades. Not even an eternity of time could heal Eren. But time could make him feel better.

A week off from university had come by ever so conveniently for Levi. He used it fairly split between studying and giving Eren all of his attention.

Levi appeared visibly at ease upon seeing his step-brother doing better. It might be because of the great amount of time he had dediacted to Eren, being a salvation in darker times. But it might also be because of Eren standing up to his demons. This kind of fight bore lots of endurance and strength, but Levi believed in Eren not being as fragile as Eren liked to call himself.

Eren was strong. A strong and worthy fighter.

When things weren’t inclined towards the abyss of looming darkness, Eren preferred to be cuddled by Levi, watching movies together. That way neither of them had to talk without the silence wafting over them like an uncomfortable scorn.

A marathon of four movies later, Levi pressed a button on the remote and sent the television’s screen to blackness. His gaze locked with Eren’s profile. Eren had leant back against Levi’s chest with his back, knees pulled up, a blanket thrown over his feeble figure. He was still staring at the now pitch-black screen, his gaze aimless.

Levi rubbed his hands over Eren’s arms, moving them higher to fondle his cheeks and comb his fingers through the brown locks then. He planted a candid kiss on Eren’s temple. Twice.

Suddenly it came out of Eren, “When will the guilt stop eating away at me?” His words, coming out sore and raw due to his barely used vocal cords over the past few days, stung Levi. As if many tiny needles speared him.

The worst was that Levi couldn’t give a satisfying answer to that.

No one in the world knew when guilt would cease maltreating their hosts like God punished humanity with a great flood.

The Devil would come and get you when you think that you are already beyond the worst.

“I don’t know.” Levi replied honestly, stroking parts of Eren’s body again. “But I am here for you. And I will never stop loving you. I will chase that guilt away whenever I can.”

Eren was actually able to release a dry, humourless scoff. Levi’s devotion had never failed to astonish him whenever he was in the condition to dwell over it.

Levi shifted entirely. He turned Eren around, softly pressing him down onto the sofa. His eyes shimmered with stealthy want. His fingers, nimble and hesitant, traced over Eren’s clothed upper body. All the while Eren remained silent. He was fully aware of this moment being Levi’s.

Not only would they have sex the way Eren wanted it—harsh and bruising. Sometimes Levi would get the sex he wanted.

Sex that was full of love and worship.

Levi would inwardly praise and adore every part of Eren’s body like a highly religious prayer.

_I love you so much, Eren. If you die, I will lose you. I don’t want you to be gone. I always want to feel your skin under my finger._

_Your existence is my shrine._

***

Who could have known that Eren and Kuchel would come together for another talk very soon?

It was when Eren spotted Kuchel crying softly to herself in the living room. Prior to that, he had made out the front door being slamming shut excruciatingly loudly by someone. Eren guessed it must have been his father Grisha who had made such an overdramatic but wrathful leave.

Insecurely playing with the door knob as he stood by the door leading to the inside of the living room, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, chewing on his lips, Eren worked up a decent amount of courage by taking a deep breath.

His step mother was obviously upset, and he couldn’t witness that without doing anything. Levi must have probably been somewhere upstairs doing homework or so, thus Eren had to do this alone.

“K-Kuchel?” he attempted warily. His big doe eyes made contact with swollen, teary and red eyes.

Kuchel startled at her name being called out, sniffing and wiping some tears away with the back of her hand. “Oh. Eren. It’s you.” She cleaned more of her tears as she poorly attempted to come off more collected. The smile she desperately tried to maintain was by far her poorest attempt. “Is something wrong?”

Even at a time like this she would give her full attention to the well-being of the kids, her own breakdown would have to be shoven back. It made Eren at least half as upset as Kuchel was feeling at that moment.

He altered his demeanour. Seeing now how Kuchel needed and wanted some comfort, the fears of getting rejected or shooed away by her became null. “No. Nothing is wrong with me. But something is wrong with you, right? Did… What happened?” He approached her, on his way picking up the tissue box on the coffee table. He sat down next to her on the couch, offering her the tissues. His genuine worry radiated off like a small explosion. “Did dad do something to you?” He was uncertain whether he wanted to know the answer to that or not, and it caused him to sense some of his previous fears in the pit of his stomach again.

Kuchel gratefully accepted a tissue and blew her nose. Another tissue was used to dab her eyelashes and cheeks dry. “You mean if he physically hurt me? No, he didn’t. But your father is so stupid sometimes.” She was literally spitting those last few words. “So so so stupid. He has a lot to complain about. It’s unbearable.”

Awkwardly fighting with himself – since he couldn’t decide over how to react or what to say in a moment like this –, fidgeting in place, Eren opted for a single thing in the end. He hugged her. Very tight and marked with love he didn’t have chances to express towards his deceased mother too many times.

Relief overcame him as he heard Kuchel chuckle softly. So his move wasn’t so out of place after all.

A hand grazed over his hair. Some of the sweetness in her voice got restored. “Your father may be stupid sometimes, but you, Eren, never make me unhappy. You are a good boy. Good boys make me calm down.” She started to fondly stroke Eren’s back, cuddling him even more. “A good boy. I love you, Eren.”

What neither of them could know was the fact that Levi had witnessed that scene from behind the slightly parted living room door Eren hadn’t chosen to close entirely. Still and motionless, Levi had been staying in the same spot for quite some while now, eyes cast straightforward in an unerring manner.

The emotions whirling inside him were… undescribable. The only emotion mirrored on his face was a stoic expression that couldn’t be read into much anyway.

He lost some of that mental and physical posture when Grisha appeared behind him with heavy steps. Levi turned around and was met with his step-father who pretty much wore a rueful expression. At least that was what Levi could interpret with the way Grisha’s eyebrows were creased and his lips were pressed to a thin line.

Levi remained silent, wondering about whether his step-father actually wanted something from him.

And then, “Levi, do you want to be in a private school and live in dorms until you go to med school?”

“I want to stay with Eren.”

“I see.”

Grisha went past him, opening the door to the living room without making a secret out of it. He walked up to the cuddling pair and halted in front of his son.

He picked him up. “My son, can you leave your step-mother and me alone for a bit?”

“Uh…” was all that Eren’s mouth managed to voice.

“Thank you.” Grisha pecked his forehead and let him down, a hand on Eren’s back guiding him out.

Eren did do as was told to him, toddling to the hallway where he spotted Levi in the semi-darkness. Taking one last look back, he followed the scene of Grisha cautiously approaching his wife, making efforts to demonstrate peace and calmness by slowly spreading out his arms to receive her in them. Kuchel had rejected him and his efforts altogether at first, shielding herself by brushing him off, but it didn’t last for long.

A few soothing words and gentle approaches melted her icy attitude. Until the married couple enclosed each other in a hug—the end of their today’s fight.

Having reached the hallway by now, Eren silently took Levi’s hand the other had extended towards him and together they ascended the stairs.

“We should go to our rooms. They probably want to be alone right now.” Levi explained while they were already taking the stairs up.

Silently agreeing with his step-brother, Eren couldn’t hold back from peering in the direction of the living room once more.

But, from where he was situated on the stairs, he couldn’t see anything.

***

In those times where Eren was in a decent state, going through life on his own somewhat decently, there was a bad habit that he tended to fall back on that he thought he was keeping a secret to Levi (in reality – without knowing that – that thing wasn’t a secret to him; Levi just had never confronted him with it because he didn’t want to give Eren more stress than necessary).

It was the abusive use of alcohol and nicotine.

When he felt like consuming those things, he would always proceed the same way. He left the house while Levi was in uni, actually freshly bathed, smelling of apples (hair) and mint (mouth). The thing he was going to indulge in actually motivated him to present a clean appearance.

However, his crestfallen face wouldn’t change much. He entered the convenience store sluggishly, chose several vodka and whiskey bottles and packs of cigarettes in the same fashion, and the only time he showed invisible signs of hesitation was at his next stop, which was the isle for shaving equipment.

The tiny packs of razors enticed him invitingly. It was about time that he needed new ones. But he couldn’t just go to the cash register with his three desired items like nothing. Just by looking at them, not many brain cells needed, the cashier would figure out right away what kind of fuck up Eren was.

Which was why Eren put a shaving kit in his shopping basket as well. Like that, he could go around and mind his own business, no one eyeing him too strangely.

He placed the items on the counter and spared the cashier very few glances. He added a lighter to the purchases because he remembered that he had forgotten to bring one with him. He had to show his ID (they would say that he looked younger than 18 _every time_ ) and paid in cash.

His purchases in a plastic bag and having survived the trip to the store and the frowning gazes from the ugly cashier with that stupid face full of pimples and that greasy hair and those horn-rimmed glasses, Eren made his way to the city park.

There, he looked out for an unoccupied bench away from the places many people would saunter through. He sat down with a heavy sigh, resting the shopping bag on the empty spot next to him.

How tiring.

He had let it slip from his memory how exhausting it could be to make a few errands where he would be forced to interact with others and the outside world.

Sighing again, he buried a hand inside the bag, fishing out a bottle. He downed the 500ml of pure vodka in a matter of minutes, greeting the effects of the alcohol. The sensation of numbness and mental dizziness was a feel-good moment for Eren.

Next he opened the pack of cigarettes, placing one between his lips and lighting it up behind a cupped hand. He took a long and slow drag, watching the tip gleam red. He blew out the smoke leisurely, closing his eyes. The next drag came shortly after.

And it went on just like that.

The toxins seared through Eren’s veins in streams.

He smoked three cigarette’s in a row before he opened the next bottle, taking long sips of it.

As unhealthy as it was, that bad habit of his counted as a pleasant self-care in Eren’s eyes.

The razors would come to play later, they required a bit more privacy.

For now, the cigarettes and booze would suffice.

Eren drank two and a half bottles and smoked five cigarettes in total, and no one had turned their heads at him. He found himself in the park in solitude.

He made his way home when the sun was beginning to set. Levi would come back from university soon.

He shouldn’t see Eren with those things in his hands.

And Eren still wanted to do something without Levi loitering around.

Once back home, Eren put the bag with the stuff from the convenience store on his bed, rummaging in it shortly. He took out the pack of razors and left everything else where it was, going to the bathroom. He locked it and remained right behind the door for a few seconds. The hand around the pack clenched tighter.

The thing about cutting his wrists open was that it delivered a nice taste of death. The temptation always got him and Eren would regularly become a voluntary victim to the pain.

Eren stood by the sink now as he hectically released the razors from its confinements. A razor blade fell into the sink, but Eren hardly took notice of that. His attention was with the blade that he did get a hold of, tilting it slightly between his fingers.

As if on cue, his marred wrist twinged, as if woken up and awaiting for the cuts.

Eren pulled up his sleeve, setting the razor on the spot next to his freshest cut. Even if he outwardly showed apathy at the moment (the mirror said so), inside, Eren was boiling with agitation.

He drew the cut and got instantly visited by painful relief.

Blood first pooled ontop of the cut until it had a good enough amount to spill over—and it did. With it came the pain of a cut on skin.

But, for Eren, it was a welcoming feeling. The stinging sensation of death being within reach if only he cut deeper momentarily satisfied the demons inside him.

Only with the self-harming was Eren able to make peace with himself (and the things he had done) for the moment. The pain was appropriate, he thought, it was _necessary_.

Eren had to inflict pain on himself.

He sighed lowly, droopily watching the blood trails form patterns on his arm. Branches of blood. The sink was partly splashed with red dots and the razor in his hand got dropped, joining the first one in the sink.

Eren took deeper breaths, wriggling his fingers, clenching them to fists. More blood oozed out.

_Wonderful._

Eren ravened the hazy air of self-destruction and humiliation long enough to feel gradually better. Levi hadn’t come home yet either, which was optimal because his step-brother could never understand Eren’s desire and need for that kind of self-harming.

Levi was a naive person who thought he could heal Eren.

But Eren knew that was impossible.

One couldn’t heal someone if that someone didn’t want to be healed.

Eren deserved this. This was what he would tell himself every time. He deserved it, he deserved it, he deserved it.

Washing the two razors in the sink, he then put them back to the others. He changed his clothes and brushed his teeth to erase evidences of his activities. Lastly, he put a bandage on his wound.

He went back to his room where the other of his purchases from today were resting on the bed. He put the razors inside and sealed the bag with two firm knots. He hid it under his bed, behind many boxes and other stuff that was stashed. The best place to keep something away from Levi’s watchful eyes because Levi didn’t go as far as to rummage in the depths of Eren’s belongings.

Before he moved the boxes back to their places, Eren gave the bag one last look.

Yeah.

This would be fine.

***

While Eren and Levi lived on being the best step-brothers in the world, the dysfunctional dynamic of their parents Kuchel and Grisha were weaving to new dimensions. The sheer amount of frustration both went through for the sake of not letting their kids suffer from break-ups or even a divorce was outstanding.

Once more it had been Kuchel who had to suck it up more often.

At almost midnight, the kids safely and soundly asleep, yet another fight broke free behind closed living room doors.

Kuchel and Grisha, the former one churning and the latter stubbornly uncomprehending, were facing each other with a few feet between them. Hands and arms were flailing around, the voices got louder, the reproaches nastier.

Sick of listening to Grisha’s lectures, Kuchel’s face twisted awfully as a frown spread on it. She placed two fingers on each of her temple. “You are aweful. You are slowly rotting me from the inside! It’s so nerve-racking to live and go by your ridiculously high standards and demands!”

Grisha, holding onto his believes as always, delivered a retort with ease. “I am not asking for much. It’s better if you give up your job at that lousy place and take care of the kids full time. I won’t send Levi to a private school, you can see him every day. My job as a surgeon pays more than enough to feed us through every month.”

Kuchel’s resentment was maintained like a bonfire. “Why do you insist on me quitting my job so much?!”

“Because the people you told me you deal with are gross and disrespectful as hell to you!”

“Stop saying that! That’s not your problem!!” Kuchel covered her face with her hands, and when she pulled them away, her expression was that of mourning regret. She mumbled, “Why? Why did I have to become pregnant at a time like this?”

“You—” And then Grisha fully understood what Kuchel had murmured there, falling into a state of freeze. His eyes widened slightly, mouth wider in astonishment. “You… what?”

Kuchel, mad as she was, was throwing her husband sour frowns at first, but resigned with every part of herself after a moment. Sighing, shoulders slack, she went to her handbag on the couch table.

She retrieved a piece of paper from it, checking whether it was the right one. It was. She approached her husband with that paper, silently. Grisha had followed this weird scene with as much silence.

Kuchel presented to him the sheet of paper by steeply extending her arm, still scowling. “I went to my gynaecologist. Stress wasn’t the factor for the irregularity of my cycles. I thought it was, but it wasn’t. These are the test results. I’m pregnant.”

Grisha took the papers from her, reading them. As a doctor, he understood every line and knew when a result was indeed confirming something like a pregnancy.

And it was as Kuchel had said.

Kuchel’s scowl crumbled. Sadness overcame her. “I’m already at my tenth week.” Her jaw tightened, she ground her teeth. “It’s too late for… Too late to do an—”

“Stop.” Grisha pleaded softly. “Don’t say that.”

Tears pricked at the corner of her eyes as Kuchel made eye contact with him. “But… Being pregnant… This is the worst. We have other problems. Don’t tell me you’re fine with yet another child?”

“I know we have problems, but we can work it out. We _will_ work it out. I will do my best to support you. Don't… Please don’t feel forced to get rid of that baby.” Grisha made a tentative step forward. He asked for a reconciliation by raising his arms for an embrace, dropping the test results. Those results shouldn’t be the end of their marriage. “I guess now isn’t the best time to become pregnant, but I am not against it. Kuchel, I’m sure this baby is a good thing that is happening to us. Our family shall not break apart.”

Witnessing how he was certainly moved by the idea of her being pregnant, Kuchel felt touched too; knowing now that Grisha wasn’t loathing the idea of her being pregnant—or even worse, forcing her to have an abortion, even though it was already too late to ask for one in the hospitals because something like that couldn’t be arranged with all requirements within two weeks.

A heavy burden taken from her, Kuchel let herself fall into Grisha’s arms, crying freely. Grisha whispered reassuring promises.

Perhaps, the family would become intact again after all.

***

Levi came home, as always asking himself in his mind, how Eren was doing.

He found the other sitting on the couch, hugging a pillow, legs on the couch table, having fixated a spot on the turned off TV screen. He looked up when Levi made noises to announce his arrival. Expression vacant, Eren loosened his hold on the pillow.

"I’m back.” Levi stated the obvious, just to initiate some sort of conversation. He still couldn’t make out anything of that behaviour of Eren’s. Had he had any nightmares? Was depression starting to kick in ruthlessly again?

“Yeah,” Eren’s eyes roamed from the top of Levi’s head over his torso to his feet, “I can see that.”

“How are you feeling?” Levi examined every move or sign on Eren’s face.

“I don’t know. It depends on you.” Eren’s voice held some furtive secrecy.

“On me? How can I help?”

“Tell me everything you love about me, Levi.”

That sudden demand had Levi taken aback for a split of a second. Until his brain was working again and he realised that this turn of events must have been a gift sent by God and his Angels.

There was nothing else Levi would have loved to do more.

If that was what Eren wanted or needed right now, Levi would fulfill that wish – even while rolling on hot stones – without hesitation.

Eren asked of him to show him how much he loved him—and Levi had a lot to show.

He neared the couch until he was standing right in front of Eren. He bent down to give him a long and lasting kiss, a hand on his cheek. “There is a lot I love about you.” he said once they parted.

Levi made it himself comfortable on the sofa, bringing Eren to their favourite position; Eren lying back against Levi’s chest, caged between his legs.

And Levi did as was asked of him. Did so in the greatest manner of worship. As if he was worshipping a deity.

It ended in an uncontrolled and messy handjob where Levi got to bring Eren to a bursting climax while Eren was crying out throaty moans. Levi had plastered Eren’s neck with new bites and marks because he didn’t want to leave out things that gave his step-brother satisfaction.

Levi’s hands sticky with come in Eren’s pajama shorts, Eren lost in the aftermath of his orgams, they remained like that for a while.

Levi thought it best to lull Eren to sleep with more praises and loving compliments, so he did.

Eren dozed off into a light and dreamless sleep, which happened so rarely.

***

Kuchel and Grisha had announced to their kids in the morning that they would go away on a trip today.

Because it laid very back in the past since they all went on a trip last, Eren and Levi had found themselves in wonderment about those news, their excitements gradually blossoming the closer they drove to their unknown destiny.

It turned out to be a trip to the famous hills of Shiganshina.

“There’s a sightseeing platform on some of the hills. The view from up there is fascinating. We’re going to have a picnic there.” Grisha explained as he took the picnic basket from the car trunk. Kuchel stayed close to him, smiling to herself and then to the kids. Eren and Levi didn’t say anything, but they were surely impatient to finally go up the hill.

However, when Eren spotted how Kuchel was staring at him for a while, he got self-conscious, dropping his gaze to the ground. Levi only noticed how Eren’s face had faltered, thus asking him whether he was all right. Eren nodded instantly, putting on an ingenuine smile once more.

“Also, we have something to tell you. I think it’s nice to discuss that outside, during a picnic, surrounded by fresh nature and relaxing visuals.”

Levi helped carrying some of the stuff and then all four of them made their way to the platform. Grisha and Kuchel went ahead, holding hands. Levi saw that and wondered about whether it meant that everything was finally fine between them.

He sincerely wished for that. 

"Are you excited about that view and the picnic, too?” He switched his attention to his little step-brother, who had been following him silently, a hand holding onto Levi’s shirt.

Eren nodded, but other than that he didn’t say a word.

Having reached the platform, being 800m above the ground, Levi and Eren couldn’t believe what they were met with: The afternoon sun throned briskly in the sky as Shiganshina displayed its vastness and various shades of buildings and trees. Sounds from the city didn’t reach the hills, but the kids admired the beauty as they looked down at that vivid imagery that was filled with living beings.

“Let’s prepare the picnic first. You two have lots of time to marvel at the view later.” Grisha was the first one to head to the tables in the middle of the platform, setting the basket down. The other three followed him and sat around the table.

They ate in brisk joy, Grisha and Eren on one side of the table, Levi and Kuchel on the other; the adults on one side and the kids on the other side facing each other.

Grisha was praising the sandwiches which Kuchel had made and Kuchel underwent periodic moments where she would blush and stutter cutely. She offered everyone self-made smoothies and more sandwiches. The upcoming dessert was strawberry short cake, which she and Grisha had baked together. It was made with “lots of undying love”.

Levi had sometimes expressed how much he liked the sandwiches and smoothie, and the rest of the time he kept staring at Eren. How strange. Eren had been eaten his sandwich in mostly silence and had avoided eye contact with any of them. He looked as though he had seen something awful. Levi wished he knew what was up with him. He couldn’t stand seeing his precious step-brother in a not so joyful mood.

“We have some good news to tell you two.” Kuchel said after the dessert was devoured with delight. She had an apple in her hand, slowly peeling it to make snacks for when the kids wanted to eat more later.

Kuchel looked at her husband, smiling, drawing her attention to the children again. Eren attempted more than ever to keep his eyes anywhere but on her, and Levi noticed that, raising a brow.

Kuchel went on. “You two will have a sibling next year. I’m pregnant.”

She made a pause so that the news could settle in the kids’ minds. Grisha waited too before he said happily, “Isn’t that a nice thing? A sibling for you two.”

Kuchel showed her approval with a nod of her head and added, “If it’s a boy, we will call him Zeke. If it’s a girl, she will be called Faye. Like Grisha’s sister who, sadly, died very young.”

Levi had never considered the possibility of having a second sibling, but he befriended those news welcomingly.

“Wow, Levi! A sibling! We’re going to have a sibling!” Eren’s reaction could basically be described with that exciting exclaimation of his.

Levi was glad Eren’s odd uncertainty from prior seemed to be gone, and he nodded to Eren’s exclaim. “I’m happy about that, too.” Levi replied. Eren grinned gleefully.

“I want to see all those buildings from afar again.” Eren said, and stood up. He walked up to the railing of the platform.

“Don’t lean over it, please. If I see you doing that, you won’t be allowed to go near the railing again.” Kuchel shouted after him. She faced her son. “Please go watch over him. The same goes for you, though.”

“Okay.” Levi obediently left his seat to see what Eren was doing.

The view had both mesmerised--as if under a spell. Hands on the top bar of the railing, the boys took in every detail as the sun changed its colours one hour before it would set.

A beautiful moment of peace.

***

One day could be full of nice memories, but that didn’t necessarily reveal anything about the next one.

And that was the case for Eren and Levi here too.

Actually, their Saturday morning had started well—without any bad episodes of Eren’s, or incidents that disturbed their peace.

The mishap came from a little peek of something.

After breakfast, Levi washed the dishes from the morning and yesterday evening, and Eren had decided to help him by drying the wet dishes with a towel.

They did their work in utter silence, but neither was feeling awkward by the lack of conversation. Levi was just glad that Eren had been able to bring himself to do something like this.

And then it happened.

In a moment of carelessness, Eren had extended his arm a bit too energetically to reach for a plate Levi was waiting to hand him over. The sleeve of his hoodie was pulled upwards, past his wrist, and his bandage displayed itself like a neon sign.

Levi had noticed the bandage before Eren could pull down the sleeve in time. Because Eren hadn’t been wearing any bandages last time they had sex, Levi figured out right away what had happened.

What Eren had done to himself once again.

“Eren…” Levi tried, aware that he had to proceed with little steps now.

Eren’s mood made a full turn. He didn’t want to talk about that. He didn’t want to listen to any of Levi’s poor attempts of talking sense into him.

Thus, he retorted quickly, void of any emotions, “I had to do it.” _I had to give myself that pain._

Levi allowed a small stretch of silence. “You didn’t have to do it.”

The plate, which he had been able to get a hold of before his sleeve revealed the bandaged cuts, shook in Eren’s palm. Next, an orgy of shattering porcelain was heard as said plate hit the floor.

Eren’s instability jutted out. “I had to…”

“Eren—”

“I had to do it because I killed your mother!”

***

“It’s so beautiful, right?” Eren said, in awe.

Levi couldn’t take his eyes off Eren’s broadly smiling face. Levi’s lips curved to a little smile too. “Yeah. It’s truly beautiful.”

“When can we come to this place here again? What do you think?”

Too pre-occupied with the splendid view, the kids hadn’t realised that a fight had swollen up between their parents in the background. Grisha and Kuchel had slipped to arguments about the unborn child and the way they should work as a family in the future.

Eren and Levi only noticed that fight when it escalated—which was now.

“How could you do that?!” They heard Kuchel roar.

Turning their heads to the table, Eren and Levi spotted their parents standing upright, throwing each other angry glares. Kuchel was pointing a knife at Grisha, a half-peeled apple lying abandoned on the table.

“Why are you so agitated this time?! I don’t get it!” Grisha spat back at her.

“Don’t make important decisions without me when it concerns the family as a whole!” Kuchel reproached him with more shouts, the knife underlining just how big her reproaches were at her husband.

“What I talked about… It’s the best for us all. I don’t expect you to decline the decision! I always want the best for the family!”

“You should have told me before you made that decision. Why are you like this? Why are you like this to me?! You are belittling me! I can’t endure you anymore.” The fruit knife was shaking in her fist. “Stop taking control over literally everything! It’s sickening me!”

Grisha, totally unmoved by the knife between him and his wife, threw his hands in the air dramatically. “ _Fine!_ If you want to be bothered with _bothersome_ stuff during your pregnancy instead of taking good care of yourself and the baby, _I will let you know about every damn little thing from now on!_ You shouldn’t be asking for more control; just do a decent job as a becoming mother-to-be, will you?!”

And that was when something snapped inside of Kuchel. Because madness seemed to have taken over her. Wholeheartedly angry with Grisha and the situation, Kuchel’s face twisted terribly and she screamed in pain, losing the connection to her sane reasoning. And before anyone of the people present knew it, the knife - that had quivered in her hand before - was stuck in Grisha’s chest.

Levi had his hands cupped over his mouth, scared, not realising fully yet that his eyes weren’t deceiving him. Eren was staring at that scenario motionlessly, appalled.

The peace in their family had lasted for only this long.

Grisha looked down at his pierced chest with horrified and widened eyes. Blood was staining the fabric in circles. He gurgled unintelligible words. He fell back, over the seats, and laid lifelessly on the floor, not moving or even twitching anymore.

Kuchel seemed to have hit the bottom of reality back again when the knife in Grisha’s chest had slipped through her fingers. It was only now that she understood what she had done there – murder! –, what she had done to her very own husband. Regret instantly falling upon her, shock shaking her from deep in her bones, she trembled and couldn’t take her eyes off the crime she had committed cold-bloodedly.

“Dad…?” It came lowly from Levi’s side. “Dad! Dad!”

Eren ran up to his father, already crying with fright. “Dad! Wake up! Dad!” He was shaking his father whose soul had already left the body. Eren’s father was grotesquely staring into Eren’s eyes with a gaping mouth. “No! Dad! You can’t die! You mustn’t die! Dad!” Eren sobbed, begging for his father to wake up over and over again.

“E-Eren, I—…” Kuchel tried in vain. She couldn’t even explain to herself what had driven her to do that.

With blood-smeared hands, Eren slowly let go of his father, tilting his head up to his step-mother. He glared at her, crying louder. “What did you do?! Why did you do that?!!” Kuchel couldn’t do else than look back at him with regretful eyes. “You killed my father! You killed him!”

Eren stood back on his feet, pushing Kuchel back, being in brute wrath. He senselessly pushed her back more and more. And Kuchel let herself get pushed back more and more, too paralysed by her own self to react or comfort the son of the man she had just killed.

“You killed him! Why did you do that? You killed dad! Why?! You killed him!” Eren was stuck between crying and screaming, switching between the one and the other. Also, he wasn’t ceasing his wrathful pushing. “You killed him!”

“Eren, wait!” It came from behind him. It must have been Levi’s voice. But Eren wasn’t listening.

“You killed my father!!!!!!!!” And suddenly there was nothing to push anymore. Eren opened his teary eyes to see what had happened. He was situated right in front of the platform’s railing, his stretched out arms weren’t touching Kuchel’s body anymore.

Because Kuchel was floating behind the railing for a second before she fell downwards from a height of 800 meters. The last thing Eren saw of her was the transition of her expression--from shock (of her own murder) to blank fear of falling down the hills.

Her scream came too late, so that Eren didn’t hear much of it before her body met hard concrete.

“Eren!” Levi pulled Eren back from the dangerous spot, hugging him from behind. He was breathing harshly, his hands on Eren’s head shaking terribly.

But Eren didn’t notice any of that.

Visited by a second wave of shock, he was facing the direction where he had seen his step-mother last. With the difference that she wasn’t standing there anymore, only a little dent on the railing indicating that someone must have run against it.

Not only his father, but Kuchel was gone now too. Dead.

Eren became pale, slowly panicking.

He had pushed his own step-mother down the hills.

***

Eren stood still as the memories abused his mind. Remembering that scene took its emotional toll on him.

“It was an accident.” Levi said, his voice bordering on nonchalant. He was used to that particular discussion.

“I killed her.” Eren said in a hoarse voice. “I pushed her down that platform.”

“Seconds after you saw your father getting killed by her. You were in a shock. You didn’t know what you were doing. You didn’t know how far back you were actually pushing her.” Levi tore his gaze away from Eren’s that was distorted by pain and guilt. “I don’t understand why she did that. Was she hating your father so much that she didn’t see a way out?”

Eren scoffed angrily, desperately. “Why do you not hate me?? _I killed your mother._ ”

“Because I know it was an accident. What you did and what she did aren’t the same.”

The struggles broke out inside Eren anew. The demons of his past were in the mood to say hello. Eren was pressing his hands against his temples, eyes shut, jaw clenched, shoulders hunched, as he broke down on the floor, whimpering pathetically.

Levi had to witness how Eren’s mental state got worse again.

And the worst was that he couldn’t do anything against it.

***

“Oh my god…” Eren whispered, horrendously scared. “I killed her. I did the same to her that she did to dad.” Eren’s whole body began to quiver uncontrollably.

“You didn’t kill her.” Levi tried it soothingly, though obviously failed at it. He himself had had troubles bringing order to this situation. He and Eren were lost and no one was here to guide them to the right path. He breathed into Eren’s face, the words coming out insecurely. “Eren, listen… Please listen. S-Soon the police will come. And they will… take your father and my mother with them. And they are going to ask us questions. About what happened! So, please, listen, Eren. T-They are going to ask us separately and we both are going to say that mom killed your father first. And then she got so perplexed about what awful thing she had done that she had mindlessly staggered away from your father until she hit the railing, lost balance and fell down. Got it? I know you are feeling terrible right now, but please please please keep my words in mind. Okay? She was responsible for her own death, okay? You didn’t do anything, okay? Please tell them that, okay? Eren, I don’t want to be taken away from you!” Fearing that he was going to he parted from his beloved Eren, Levi held onto Eren as if he was his lifeline, crying into his hair. “Eren, please.”

“I’m going to jail, right?”

“You aren’t!” Levi yelled desperately. “You won’t tell them what you did. It’s the best for us, if we say that mom killed him and then fell down. Like that, there is a high chance that we won’t get separated. Please, Eren, please!”

The kids had stayed in place for fifteen minutes before the responsible person for this area and two policemen came up to the platform.

Having ascertained the status quo, Eren and Levi were soon taken to the police station—once the paramedics had confirmed that the boys were physically fine.

At the police station, Levi had been restless the whole time—the most when he was done giving his testimony and Eren was asked next. Levi had cried in his chair non-stop outside of the office, no policeman had succeeded in calming him down. All of them had thought that he was mourning over the loss of his parents, but in reality he was anxious about whether Eren was going to be taken away. He felt sad about what his mother had done to his step-father, but his fear of never seeing Eren again was eternal.

Half an hour later, Eren was finally released from the interrogation. He was looking as pale and inanimate as an hour before.

Levi hugged him, sniffing and repeating Eren’s name.

The police stated a few things that were meant for him. “The questioning took a little longer with your little brother. He stayed mute during the whole interrogation. I tried different ways to bring him to speak, but it was no use. So I asked him the questions in a way where he only had to nod or shake his head. Asked him things that would confirm or deny what you said, Levi. It seems that what you said was what really happened. Your mother killed Eren’s father and then fell down the platform because she didn’t know where she was going in her panic-fueled state. I’m sorry for your losses, you two. But at least you don’t have to come to the police station anymore. The case is clear. Now regarding you two… We’ve contacted someone who is going to bring you to a foster family who takes care of children with traumatic experiences. It’s not a good idea to put you in orphanages. Well then, take care. Again, sorry for the loss.” The policeman bid his goodbye, and the other – the one who had tried to console Levi – stayed with them until an elder woman announced her arrival to him and took the kids with her.

While they were waiting, Levi had tried to make Eren say something – just anything! – but it didn’t work. He didn’t know at that time yet that Eren would stay mute for many, many years.

But, to Levi, that wasn’t a problem.

As long as Eren was with him, anything was fine for him.

This was the beginning. The beginning of two step-brothers growing closer from a shared grim past. Where Levi started to grow fond of Eren; to the point that the meaning of his life became unconditional love and dedication for Eren.

***

Eren was feeling miserable. So miserable that he had openly taken alcohol from the hide-out under his bed, drowning in it.

He had done so in the living room, sitting on the floor, head pressed against the surface of the couch table. He had emptied two bottles already, the inside of his head was a mush.

Levi discovered him in a such like state later, having had to throw the razors in the bathroom away first.

His heart ached upon witnessing how Eren was intoxicating himself. Defeated, Levi went to Eren’s side just to pick up the two empty whiskey bottles.

Levi’s presence kind of was a nuisance to Eren at the moment, so he felt like needing to make clear that Levi was to fuck off. “Not my first time doing this, y'know?” he slurred. Once Levi was riled up upon getting to hear a secret, it would be easy to shoo him away, Eren thought.

Levi didn’t answer right away, as though weighing his words. “And you think I don’t know that?” Eren narrowed his eyes as he moved his head in order to be able to look at Levi’s face. “You forgot to hide your stuff once. I’ve known all along that you were consuming that kind of stuff and buying new razors everytime again. It’s saddening, but there’s not much I can do. All I can say is that my offer will always stand. Instead of getting drunk and ruining your lungs, you can talk to me. I will listen to everything that is bugging you.”

Eren’s mood had been a bottomless, dark hole ever since the morning with the dish washing incident. Accordingly, he reacted more vexedly to literally anything and anyone.

Just like right now.

“Why are you like that?” he yelled at Levi’s retreating figure. Levi stopped in his tracks, lowering his hands that were holding the bottles.

But he didn’t face Eren.

That Eren was forced to talk to Levi’s back, as if it was an act to make fun of him, his temper worsened. “Why did you keep up with me throughout all these years?! I am useless! My life has become nothing!! You can become a great doctor without having to deal with a dysfunctional low piece of shit! Why didn’t you send me to a mental institution after realising how much of a hopeless case I am, just like everyone else would have done in your stead? Why are you even bothering taking care of me?! Why dont you just let me alone so that I can kill myself once I have enough of being lonely and useless and worthless?”

Levi swivelled around sharply. The bottles in his hands were almost dropped. “Because I can’t lose you! I don’t want to lose you! I love you! Don’t you get it?! You are everything I have and want and need! If I had the choice, I would always choose taking care of you over any other kind of wealth or happiness!!” Levi regretted having raised his voice the instant he had done that. He was aware of the depression mixed with alcohol talking out of Eren, but in the heat of the moment he had unfortunately got carried away.

Levi’s outburst had completely silenced Eren and his self-righteous manner. Becoming visibly upset and feeling offended, Eren rose to his feet.

More regret crept into Levi as he watched Eren clumsily heading to his room.

Now it was Levi who was feeling miserable.

~

Levi kept his distance to Eren for no more than a few minutes. He couldn’t tell what Eren might do to himself in a state like he was in currently.

He cautiously opened the door to Eren’s room, peeking inside. Eren was sitting cross-legged on his bed, crying. Nothing he could hurt himself with lay close to him.

“Eren…” Levi took small steps, watched Eren from afar at first. When he could confirm to himself that it would be okay to come closer to him, he did. He sat down on the bed, lightly touching Eren’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for having yelled at you. It was uncalled-for of me.”

Eren shook his head quickly. “It was about time for you to get this angry with me.” Levi didn’t quite understand, but didn’t voice that out loud. The stench of alcohol tickled under his nose as Eren spoke. “I don’t want to go on like this anymore. I want to function again.”

Levi’s heart churned. “We can—”

“I want to go to therapy, Levi.”

Levi stunned, flabbergasted and frozen in place. Did he hear that right, just now? Levi was scared that his mind had played tricks on him. This was too surreal to be happening for real, wasn’t it?

Eren’s puffy, red eyes locked with Levi’s. His brows creased to an upset scowl the longer he observed Levi’s reaction. “Does my idea sound that bad? Are you trying to tell me that it’s already too late for me to better my mental health?”

“What? No! No, I—I was just—” Levi shook his head quickly, placing a hand on his chest. “I was just so overthrown for a moment. I’m so glad you are suggesting that, Eren. Therapy sounds nice.”

“What if my decision turns out to be a failure? A mistake? What if they are going to judge me for what I did? I… I don’t know what I might do then… to myself… What if they’re going to tell me that killing myself is the best option? I will do that!”

“Eren, hey, Eren.” Levi cupped Eren’s face, telling him to breath in and out deeply. “No one will say that to you. I promise you no one will hurt you. They will help.”

“And you will stay? Here? With me? Do I still mean anything to you, even though I want to talk to therapists?”

“Of course. I love you, Eren.”

Eren chewed on his lips. “Okay.” Levi smiled at him. Eren didn’t smile back, still too insecure. But he didn’t have to. “I know my breath stinks right now, but can I have a kiss?”

Levi gave him two kisses. Three. The last one was a passionate one that carried all of their future.

Levi knew already that his diary entry about Eren’s mental state would be a promising one tonight.

~

The next morning started off dull.

Except for that one moment where Eren sluggishly walked in on Levi talking to someone on the phone.

Once the call had ended, Eren asked curiously, “Who was that?”

Levi went on preparing breakfast as he said, “Friends from uni. They asked me to join them in a café for lunch, but I declined.”

“Why did you decline?”

Levi turned around. “Because…” He stopped, not knowing how to word his reason without risking to hurt Eren’s feelings.

It seemed that Eren understood nonetheless. “It’s fine. I’m fine. You can go out with them.”

Levi eyed Eren warily. “I would rather not… go out today.”

“Then invite them to our house. That’s fine by me.” Levi could sense how Eren still wasn’t doing acceptably okay. He was lucky that he had been able to book Eren’s first therapy session for tomorrow. The therapist had been a recommendation by one of Levi’s fellow med students.

But perhaps letting him interact with people might do Eren good. Levi accepted Eren’s suggestion. He said in a lighter tone, “Wanna get to know my friends?”

Eren was audibly at ease, too. “Sure.”

Three hours later, Eren was introduced to Levi’s friends Armin and Mikasa who became friends with Levi on campus. Armin was a med student as well and Mikasa’s major was home economics. Levi had told them beforehand that his step-brother was someone with mood changes, depending on how uncomfortable or comfortable people made him. He thought it best to reveal only that much about Eren. Armin and Mikasa didn’t seem to be bothered by that and greeted Eren heartily.

One thing that made Eren feel a bit strange was the fact that Mikasa had some similar facial features as Kuchel. At least her raven hair looked like an exact copy of Kuchel’s, except for the length of it. Eren found that odd and it made his chest tighten, but not for too long.

The two friends had brought Thai food along with them, so they all ate it while being settled on the couch. Eren on one end with Mikasa next to him and Armin next to Mikasa. Levi had taken the armchair.

“So, Eren,” Armin initiated, “if I got it correctly, you’re 18, right? Got any plans for the future?”

Eren picked at his food as he delayed his answer. “No. Not really. There’s nothing I’m exceptionally good at.”

“Ah, that’s fine.”

“Yeah. People find out what their talents or goals are at different times.” Mikasa added motivationally.

Meanwhile Levi resorted mostly to silence to watch Eren’s demeanour towards his friends. If Eren suddenly got obviously uncomfortable, Levi would need to be prepared to take care of the situation.

But so far the meeting appeared to be nice.

Once having finished eating, Levi offered everyone muffins he had made in the morning. Eren had decorated the toppings, and Mikasa and Armin teased Eren playfully, guessing what motives Eren had drawn on the frosting. Eren had fun in defending his decorating skills.

They then went over to showing Eren videos of hilarious or stupid things that people they knew had done. Armin was involved in some of them together with his boyfriend, so he tried to stop Mikasa from showing those to Eren—to no avail. Mikasa was stronger than him and pushed him with one hand back as she showed Eren the videos with the other. Surprisingly, it brought a genuine smile to Eren’s face.

Levi had already watched all contents of the videos they were talking about, so he was just sipping on the tea he had made for everyone.

Seeing Eren smile made him feel true bliss, though.

He finally had evidence right in front of his eyes that Eren could be on his way of recovery.

If Eren was going to accept the therapies, then everything surely would become better.

Life would become more enjoyable.

However, no one of them knew what small gestures could throw which person off for reasons not even the affected person was aware of.

Having finished showing all videos – Armin embarrassed, Mikasa smug, Eren amused, Levi a loyal audience of the spectacle –, Mikasa wanted to explain to Eren what other sides Armin was very well capable of showing that also were worth to be recorded.

So she leant over to Eren and amicably rested a hand on his thigh.

That was when Eren startled out of the blue. That touch of Mikasa’s had triggered something off inside him. Clueless and steadily getting anxious, Eren lowered his gaze to Mikasa’s hand. When he raised his gaze, he looked straight into Kuchel’s face.

The hallucination felt so real, Eren began to hyperventilate.

And then he got it.

Why he had suddenly become so anxious.

Hidden images of past experiences reached the surface after having slept for so long at the bottom of the ocean of Eren’s memories. These memories had waited so long for freedom.

And now they were here. They were real. And they were telling a nasty story.

_Kuchel._

It took everyone by surprise when Eren slapped Mikasa hard across the face.

Covering the reddened spot, Mikasa devastatingly asked Eren what on earth had driven him to do that. Armin had put on a questioning look as well.

Levi didn’t understand it either, but he figured out that this was bad. This was the beginning of something really bad. A bad omen. An approaching calamity.

“Don’t… touch me…” Eren got those words out slowly, as if in trance. His eyes were unfocused until they found Mikasa’s face again. Then, he got up abruptly and screamed, “Why did you do that? Don’t touch me!”

“Eren, what’s wrong?” Levi set his cup down and wanted to approach Eren, but the other shoved him back. Eren’s shoulders started to tremble horribly. An impending panic attack. Quickly, mindlessly, Eren dashed off to his room, shutting his door loudly.

“I’m sorry,” Mikasa said to Levi, “I didn’t know I’ve made a mistake.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Levi said hurriedly. He faced the direction where Eren had run off to and then turned to his friends. “I’m sorry. I have to check up on him.”

“That’s all right.” Armin said as he stood up and helped Mikasa up by offering a hand. “Please do that. We can talk later, okay?”

While Mikasa and Armin left without the company of the host by the front door, Levi hadn’t wasted a second to look after Eren.

He found him rolling on the bed, struggling with breathing.

“Eren… _Eren._ ” Levi held him, cradling him in his arms. “Calm down. Breathe in deeply. And out. I’m here. It’s okay.”

“No!” Eren sobbed. “Nothing is okay!”

“Eren… I will stay until you have calmed down. I won’t go anywhere. I will help you go through this. Just take proper breaths, please.”

Eren let out a long and ear-defeaning cry, falling into a crying fit. During that, he would constantly call out Kuchel’s name.

And Levi was comforting Eren as much as he could, till the end, wondering about what his mother had to do with any of this.

It took Eren more than half an hour to ease off.

Levi tentatively asked Eren, who wasn’t shaking that much anymore, “What happened back there? Did you have a hallucination?”

“When Mikasa touched my leg,” Eren whispered harshly, his breath only slowly going back to following regular patterns, “the memories came like a flood. Kuchel… Mikasa’s hand on my thigh… Just like Kuchel… Kuchel, Kuchel, Kuchel…”

Levi didn’t understand Eren’s confusing mantra. “What do you mean? What’s my mother got to do with it?”

“Levi, there is something… I have totally forgotten about. And now I remember. I remember it all. Oh my God. Why? Levi, why? Why did I forget about it? Why am I remembering it again? Why? Why me? Why did it happen to me?”

Despite the tears, Levi didn’t fail noticing long forgotten agony in Eren’s eyes.

“Eren… What do you mean? Please tell me.”

Eren mutely had his stare fixated on his hands, the last bits of quivers roaming over his shoulders. “There…” he started eeriely, “There is something that your mother did to me.”

***

9 p.m.

Eren couldn’t find any sleep. He had tossed around in his bed, overthinking. He had been mostly asking himself whether today had passed without his parents fighting. He hadn’t heard any loud voices from downstairs, but that didn’t mean anything. He could have overheard them.

When would his father and step-mother stop getting into arguments?

It wasn’t nice when they were yelling at each other. Eren would be on the verge of tears, if the shouting went overboard and a reconciliation seemed far away.

He wanted everything to stop and become peaceful again.

His heart made a little jump when the door to his room was opened. Was one of them checking up on him sleeping? This was no good. Eren was bad at pretending to sleep.

The person sat down on his bed, and Eren thought it best to admit clearly to them that he wasn’t sleeping yet.

“Yes, I’m still awake.” he muttered sheepishly, burying the bottom half of his face under his blanket.

“I kind of had the guess that you wouldn’t be sleeping yet.” Kuchel’s soft voice. It sounded so kind and tender. “It’s okay.”

Eren nodded, sitting up. Guiltily, he questioned, “Did you and dad fight again, today?”

Kuchel’s smile faltered. “Unfortunately, yes.” She caressed Eren’s hair and then his back, going lower and lower. “But, you know, I wanted to thank you for having talked to me in the living room last time, after your father left me there once our fight ended. With you, I could find some ease.”

Kuchel’s hands wandered to Eren’s thigh. She stroked it fondly. Eren watched her hand doing that, feeling slightly uncomfortable. No one had ever touched him as intimately as that before. Kuchel’s hand was so close to… to his…

“You’re giving me comfort, Eren honey. You’re a good boy. A really good boy. Can you take off your pajama shirt?”

Eren stunned questioningly. “Why?”

“Don’t worry. I won’t do anything bad. I will make you feel good. And I will make myself feel good. Your father… He has been especially mean today, you see?” Kuchel put on a dramatic expression, as if she was close to tears. “I don’t want to go to sleep feeling sad, Eren.”

Because he didn’t want to see her cry (even less being the cause of it), Eren obeyed and took off his shirt.

“And your pajama shorts.” Kuchel suddenly demanded, again with that soft voice of hers.

Eren didn’t feel good while doing that, but he went with it. Perhaps whatever Kuchel had in mind wasn’t as bad as he thought. Nevertheless, the feeling of strangeness wouldn’t leave him.

Kuchel began caressing his whole body. Starting from the top, her fingers fondled every part of his skin. Eren shuddered once, getting goosebumps.

His step-mother went on stroking him fondly, almost erotically.

Eren didn’t want to go on anymore, but he was scared of what would happen if he asked her to stop now. What if she started to cry or feel terribly upset? What if she would feel even worse because of him?

Eren had to endure this, hadn’t he?

And then, all of the sudden, one of Kuchel’s hands wandered into Eren’s underpants.

Eren shrieked.

***

Eren had maintained his firm stare on his hands. The only difference was that a big, fat tear was rolling down his right cheek now.

Levi had listened to the story intently, dreading the end of it. He was devastated by what Eren had revealed to him.

“She did that regularly to me in secret from then on.” Eren continued, “Whenever she and dad had fights, she would come to my room at night and touch me inappropriately. Because apparently it made her feel better. But it made me feel so bad! After some time, I believed that the fights were going on because she was doing that thing to me. I thought that dad and Kuchel could never make up, as long as she was doing that to me. I thought that the only thing that could make her happy was touching her own step-son. That she lost interest in her husband. I was sure that she couldn’t love him if she did such a thing with her step-child. So I started to feel guilty for everything. I thought I was the reason that our parents were continuing to fight. That our family was falling more and more apart because of me. And that Kuchel had wanted me to feel like that.”

Levi was at a loss for words. He listened to the story, getting to know a totally different side of his own deceased mother.

“When we went to that picnic… At first, I thought that she wanted to drop the bomb and tell my father everything. I was so anxious. I thought she would tell him and give me fault for everything that has happened after that first time she touched me. But then she told us that she was pregnant. And it was visible how happy both looked. And they didn’t seem like starting a fight again. I thought everything bad was over. I wanted to believe that and feel the relief. That I was finally free from that guilt. But then…”

Levi could guess what Eren was going to refer to next.

“Then that murder happened. When she killed dad… I couldn’t trust my eyes. This couldn’t be happening. My dad was dead and it was because of her! Once I realised that my dad was gone forever, I started to believe that everything – everything! – was her fault. Kuchel’s fault. I didn’t know towards what direction I was pushing her, but I was so angry with her. The things she did to me, the guilt she planted into me, the knife she had thrust into my dad’s chest. Everything was her fault. Our family had become a downfall because of her. I thought… That everything would have been better for us, if she hadn’t existed. Wasn’t she the true devil? I wanted her to disappear. I wanted her to… die!”

Eren swallowed hard, choking on a breath. Levi gave Eren’s heaving shoulders support.

“And she did. She died. I got what I wanted. Kuchel died. And I was the one who did that.” Eren tore his gaze away from his hands, looking with wide and vacant eyes at his step-brother. “I killed your mother. I wanted her to be dead. Accident or not, I think it was as if my subconsciousness had driven me to do that.”

Levi eyed Eren with slightly furrowed brows. “I’m sorry for the things my mother did to you. I’m deeply sorry.”

Eren shook his head. “I don’t get it, though. Why did I forget about this? The things she’s done to me.”

“Your consciousness must have supressed those memories after that accident.”

Eren nodded absentmindedly. “Did you realise that Mikasa looked a bit like Kuchel?”

“She bears some of her features, yeah. But their faces aren’t the same.”

“Her face and that hand of hers on my thigh were enough to bring back those memories.” Eren’s face distorted with anguish. “If I tell that the therapist tomorrow… they will send me to a psychatry, won’t they? I killed my step-mother who had groped me as a child. That’s reason enough to think that I had planned that murder!”

“They won’t send you to any places.” Levi tried to reassure him.

“There is no reason for me to go on like this this anymore… What’s the point of therapy, anyway? I killed her… There’s no reason for me to live anymore…” Eren’s crying was picked up again. He crooked his upper body forward, as if he had stomach pains and cried into his pillow.

Levi didn’t have anything in storage to calm Eren down. He had to wait until Eren had either no tears to shed anymore or until he was too tired to cry more and would thus go to sleep out of exhaustion.

How pitiful…

He and Eren had been so close to a recovery.

~

“Eren?” Eren whined under his blanket. Levi stood next to his bed, a glass of water in his hands. He had put three sleeping pills inside. Just to make sure.

He assumed that it was too unsafe to leave Eren alone today, but he had something important to do in university that determined his future career. After that he had planned to accompany Eren to his therapist appointment.

Until then Eren should sleep through most of the day. After all, it had always worked until now. If he was sleeping, he couldn’t hurt himself.

Or do even something worse to himself.

Levi moved the blanket until he could see Eren’s face. Eren looked exhausted and heavily lethargic. The depression had kicked hard overnight.

“I brought you some water. You have to stay at least hydrated, so please drink it, okay? I have to go now, but please do that for me, okay? You will see, once you have visited that therapist you will feel better. Because there is hope. They won’t do anything bad. They’re nice people.”

Eren hummed groggily, not sparing Levi a look.

Levi put the glass down on Eren’s nightstand, giving his step-brother a kiss on the temple.

When he left through the front door, he sensed a twisting pang in his chest.

As if life had turned away from him.

Levi got his errands done in uni as fast as he could, all the while thinking about nothing or no one else than Eren. He couldn’t explain it to himself how he’d been able to manage everything with that state of mind, but he had finished everything that had needed to be done.

He also dropped by Armin’s and Mikasa’s classes to apologise for Eren’s behaviour yesterday, lying to them that he was feeling much better and was regretting his slap. Mikasa wasn’t hurt by Eren’s slip of the hand and would like to talk to him again.

After that, Levi sprinted home, taking the underground railway instead of the bus because that way he would be home quicker.

When he turned the key in the door lock and went inside, that pang in his chest from the morning tingled again.

Levi had a bad feeling.

A very bad feeling.

He dashed to Eren’s room, ungracefully pushing the door open. Eren was still lying in bed.

But there was something wrong. And then he saw it clearly.

It was Levi’s mistake.

Levi’s mistake.

Levi should have known it.

He shouldn’t have gone.

If he hadn’t, Eren wouldn’t have a gaping hole in his wrist now, copious amounts of blood having drenched the blankets and bed sheets. The razor rested between Eren’s lifeless, pale fingers.

Levi’s biggest fear had become true. He had come home to Eren having killed himself.

Levi shifted his gaze to one object in this room.

The glass of water had been left untouched.

~

It was late when Levi came back from uni. His apartment appeared more deserted than before.

He put his bag down and rid himself of shoes and jacket. Every day he would go to Eren’s room before anything else.

It had become a daily ritual. Not only a routine, Levi was following that ritual like a shaman.

Once inside the room, he sat down on Eren’s bed, occupying only one side of it for a reason. He remained in silence for a few minutes, his method of announcing that he was back.

And then he started talking. “That wasn’t fair, you know, Eren? I’m only three years into my med studies. I had to make a lot of researches to find out how to properly preserve dead bodies.”

Levi turned his head to the left. 

There he was. 

Eren was sitting up the same way Levi was. His skin had taken a pale-white shade. His eyes were replaced by glass eyes, his mouth sealed together with green threads and many stiches. His shirt’s v-line revealed big stitches right under his collarbones.

Levi had had to work on every part of the body to prevent Eren’s dead body from rotting.

It took him a few days and many items he had had troubles getting his hands on, but in the end he had finished his work with success. He was actually proud of his work.

He wasn’t like Frankenstein who had created a living human from dead pieces.

He had kept a dead human in the living world.

That was even better.

Because he could keep Eren until he died.

He could shower Eren with love until he died.

Levi moved the blanket away from over Eren’s stiff body. He preferred to touch Eren’s skin without it feeling like literal cold flesh.

He hugged Eren from the side, affectionately. He threaded his fingers with Eren’s. “You died too early, you know. You shouldn’t have died yet. You shouldn’t have left me alone. I told you that I didn’t want to lose you. But don’t worry. I took care of it. I didn’t lose you.”

After Eren’s _death_ , Levi had not once wasted a second on handling his loss. He didn’t have to.

If Eren was still with him, alive or not, Levi wasn’t facing any loss.

He kissed Eren’s cheek. He didn’t shy away from giving all kinds of love and affection he had given him before. He was still together with Eren, after all. He had done his best to keep him preserved as if he had never died. Conversations would be one-sided from now on, but that was all right.

A thumb caressed the back of Eren’s hand. Levi was lost in thoughts, but as long as Eren was by his side, he could feel his very own kind of happiness.

“I love you so much. I couldn’t let you go, Eren.”

**Author's Note:**

> And now... you all can wonder about just how obssessive Levi's love for Eren must have been the whole time ;'D
> 
> I hope some of you liked this fic!
> 
> Feel free to leave comments. Feedback is appreciated!!
> 
> Tumblr: [pinkheichou](http://www.pinkheichou.tumblr.com)


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